Game-Pad has a short interview with Erling Ellingson from Funcom. A few nice tidbits on the AoC expansion and The Secret World. Check it out here :

http://game-pad.net/interviews/445-funcom-interview

Enjoy :)

 Nice and tight little interview. Not a 7 page long read which I never have time for anyway.

Pretty good fast read, thanks. Sure wish he would have mentioned about the AO upgrade. Haven't heard a peep about it since i think it was announced.

Originally posted by emptyhand

How is that a nice interview? It gives no new information what so ever. Just the good old marketing crap.

well guess your have more time to read pages upon pages of interviews. This interview tells us about the status right now and gives a little background to the expac and tsw. Nice to know that things are still on track after latest negative news. Thats the info required at the moment. Not pages of gameplay info. They will come, rest asured, and you will have your chance to critizie it or praize ;-) it. 

Hehe...

Classic EE smoke and mirrors. His Xbox360 "answers" amounts to: "Dont call us - We'll call you."

Thanks. I needed a good laugh before the weekend

Too bad that the AoC team, having worked hard to keep the game moving ahead, have to endure the same old EE tactics.
Sorry nothing new here... Just EE talking out the same old overused hole as he have been for the last 3-4 years. 

As much as i hate Funcom for killing AoC I do like the TSW. But my only questions is when will it come out? They cut 20% of their staff?

I have to agree that this interview seems to try to reinforce AOCs image in a positive light without giving out any new information about the progression of the game development of AOC or TSW. Oh, except for EE stating that the development of Dreamfall Chapters has been put on indefinate hold.
Regarding the development of AOC and TSW for the 360 platform, it seems that AOC has a "Team" that has been assigned to work on it. At my office, I am part of 4 different teams but I focus about 90% of my time working on what I was hired to work on and I split the other 10% of my time just tinkering around with the other 4 team projects. That means that out of my typical 100 hour payperiod(2 weeks), I spend just 2.5 hours with my team on these special projects. That equates to just 5 of my hours per month.
Also, my team only consists of 4 people. Now im not saying that this is identical to what AOC has going but this is true for the majority of gaming companies and their special projects.
As for EE being unable to talk about TSW on 360, it is most likely going to be the same development that AOC produces for the 360 and if AOC is unable to produce a 360 platform then TSW wont have it to work with either.

IMO, EE is just trying to do damage control by creating some positive hype, in hope of countering the recent negative hype from the 20% company wide job cuts.

FC has a history of making bad decisions. What FC needs to be focusing on is TSW. They need to strip the AOC workforce to barebones and place the majority of their employees to develop TSW.

they're including EE in the 80% of the staff left

Originally posted by emptyhand

Originally posted by Vespers

FC has a history of making bad decisions. What FC needs to be focusing on is TSW. They need to strip the AOC workforce to barebones and place the majority of their employees to develop TSW.

 

Yes. Funcom needs to accept the fact that AoC failed. Comeback program failed and AoC will never have 100k+ subscriptions again. I don't think anyone will dispute this. AoC is slowly becoming what Anarhy Online was before, a second priority MMO of a small game development company.

Like all niche game, AoC has a small but very loyal customer base who doesn't mind the shortcomings of AoC and do like the game. These players will keep playing and paying no matter what until the servers close down. They don't need any new content because they are happy with what they have.

If Funcom shifts all its focus on TSW, they will get a third chance to make it big. Lets just hope they learned something from the two previous failures.

WOW!!!

You guys are so good at running MMO development companies, you seem to have all the answers to what an MMO developer has to do in order to succeed. 

/sarcasm off. 

Seriously, why dont you guys put your money where your mouth is and start working for an MMO developer and you will understand why a game is supported while another is put out.

AoC, as a project, makes money!!!!!
AO, as a project, makes money!!!!
Why shouldt they be supported bu Funcom?????

Funcom has made 2 MMO flops in a row. Obviously they DO need some outside advise because what they are doing doesnt seem to be able to capture and retain player subscriptions.
Flops? Yes. Any game that has gone from over 1.2 million games shipped down to less than 100k subs is considered a flop. You may disagree with this but almost a million cancelled subscribed players would disagree with you.

As for AOC and AO making money, I could work for McDonalds flipping burgers and make enough money to pay the bills but that doesnt make me a success.

AO is history. It has a few players to pay the salary of a very few developers. AOC's time in the spotlight is also past. They had their shot and blew it. Now it is time for FC to try and make their next MMO a success and that means stripping their other projects to barebones and throwing most of their resources at TSW.
You will most likely disagree with me, and that is your choice, but you are pretty much blinded by your love of AOC. Unfortunately for you, the vast majority of people who have had experience with AOC are not blinded and will tend to side with my reasoning.

Originally posted by Vespers

Funcom has made 2 MMO flops in a row. Obviously they DO need some outside advise because what they are doing doesnt seem to be able to capture and retain player subscriptions.
Flops? Yes. Any game that has gone from over 1.2 million games shipped down to less than 100k subs is considered a flop. You may disagree with this but almost a million cancelled subscribed players would disagree with you.

As for AOC and AO making money, I could work for McDonalds flipping burgers and make enough money to pay the bills but that doesnt make me a success.

AO is history. It has a few players to pay the salary of a very few developers. AOC's time in the spotlight is also past. They had their shot and blew it. Now it is time for FC to try and make their next MMO a success and that means stripping their other projects to barebones and throwing most of their resources at TSW.
You will most likely disagree with me, and that is your choice, but you are pretty much blinded by your love of AOC. Unfortunately for you, the vast majority of people who have had experience with AOC are not blinded and will tend to side with my reasoning.

oh, I agree. AoC will not be the main focus of Funcom anymore. Most of us like to focus on the future and Funcoms future is TSW. I dont really love AoC but i hate liars and there are so many liars on this forums spreading false information about Funcom and AoC. However AoC will live on for many years because it will feed Funcom with cash!! Cash that they need sorely. The thing is that AoC as an independent project makes money and therefore will live for years. Even if Funcom goes bankrupt AoC will live. A cash positive project will not be closed down. Humans are simply too greedy for that.